Former head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn returned to Paris on Sunday.

Large numbers of police and media were awaiting the erstwhile presidential contender at the airport terminal as he emerged from customs after arriving on an Air France flight from New York.

It is the economist and diplomat's first time in his homeland since the May arrest that ended his tenure as the leader of the IMF and potentially snuffed out hope for a political career.

Political future?

In France, members of his Socialist Party have been distancing themselves from Strauss-Kahn ahead of his return. One of five candidates from the party for the Socialist presidential nomination, Martine Aubry, said she thinks "the same way as a lot of women" about Strauss-Kahn's attitude toward women.

Former Prime Minister Michel Rocard, a member of the Socialists, said Strauss-Kahn, who has long had a reputation of being a compulsive womanizer, "visibly has a mental disorder" because of his "difficulties in controlling his instincts." Rocard later apologized for that remark.

Francois Hollande, currently leading the pack of Socialist candidates has spoken vaguely about a position for the him in the election, but without mentioning ministerial positions.

Reasonable doubt

The 62-year-old Strauss-Kahn had spent almost a week in jail, six weeks under house arrest and then was prohibited from leaving the country until New York prosecutors finally dropped the case last week, saying that his accuser had lost credibility.

The hotel maid who had accused Strauss-Kahn of rape, Guinean-immigrant Nafissatou Diallo, had changed her version of the events of the night of the assault and lied about a previous rape.

"We simply no longer have confidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty," prosecutors wrote in a court filing last week.

Strauss-Kahn had resigned from his post as the IMF chief shortly after his arrest and one of his first actions as a free man last week was to visit his former IMF colleagues in Washington DC.

Diallo has lodged a civil case against Strauss-Kahn in a court in New York and in France, writer Tristane Banon has also filed a lawsuit accusing him of attempted rape in 2003. French police are investigating those allegations.

Author: Stuart Tiffen (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)

Editor: Sean Sinico